Report: 'Lion King' star Shannon Tavarez, 11, dies

File photo / AP PhotoThis July 16, 2010 file photo shows actress Shannon Tavarez at her home in the Queens borough of New York. Katharina Harf, co-founder of the bone marrow donor center DKMS, says that Tavarez, 11, died after a battle with leukemia Monday, Nov. 1, 2010 at Cohen Children's Medical Center in New Hyde Park, on New York's Long Island.

People magazine reports Broadway singer Shannon Tavarez, 11, passed away after a long battle with acute myeloid leukemia. She played Young Nala in The Lion King on Broadway.

Because doctors couldn't find a bone-marrow match for a transplant, Shannon received an umbilical-cord transplant in late August as an alternative.

According to AP, the search for a match was especially daunting because Shannon's mother is African-American and her father is Hispanic, from the Dominican Republic. For bone marrow transplants, minorities and those of mixed ancestry have a more difficult time finding good matches because there aren't as many people from those groups signed up as potential donors.

Right now, 83 percent of African-American patients who need marrow transplants don't find matches after six months of searching, according to the National Marrow Donor Program, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping patients receive transplants.

According to Broadwayworld.com, Shannon got the role of Young Nala after her first open audition at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. She attended Harlem School of the Arts for vocals and piano from the age of 3. She made her Broadway debut in September of 2009, and she played four of eight shows a week until April when her symptoms began.